This report is focused around Lost and Found data using the intakes and outcomes data received for 2019-2021 (up to August). Its goal is to reflect everything we could learn about L&F from the available data, make sure the numbers we see make sense, and highlight things that would be useful to show but some/all data required for them are missing.

Date range: 2019-01-01 to 2021-08-31

Report Structure

  1. KPIs: data points that indicate how good the shelter is doing on on L&F. They have numeric goals associated with them.
  2. Supporting data: data points that aren’t a goal themselves but serve as a proxy for improving a goal. For example, the method of RTH is not a performance indicator, but it helps identifying how RTHs take place. The number of strays found per ZIP code is not a metric to improve, but it shows where most strays are coming from to guide resource allocation.
  3. Data notes: the state of the data received from the shelter.
  4. Extra metrics: some ideas for additional L&F metrics and the data points they require.

Scroll down or use the table of contents on the left to navigate throughout the document. Most sections contain multiple tabs showing different facets of a data type. Most plots are interactive, meaning they include tooltips and allow hiding and showing parts and zooming in and out. If something went wrong, look for the house icon in the top right corner of each figure to reset.

KPIs

Yearly RTH Rates by Species

This section provides an overview of the RTH rate per year divided by species.

Overall RTH Rate

This table covers all strays and RTHs. Animals younger than 4 weeks are excluded from stray and RTH calculations. RTH rates shown below are the number of strays with RTO outcome out of all strays.

When we go over this, let’s make sure we calculate the rate the same way you do, so we would want to make sure what we see makes sense. If these numbers are right, they are lower than the national and HASS averages, which are at 30% RTH rate (for dogs) and about the same as the RTH rate for cats (3%).

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 2203 45 0.02
Cat 2020 1349 26 0.02
Cat 2021 794 35 0.04
Dog 2019 1432 332 0.23
Dog 2020 952 248 0.26
Dog 2021 684 161 0.24
Other 2019 461 7 0.02
Other 2020 417 1 0.00

Field RTH Rate

This one only counts animals who came in as strays from the field, which is anything except the intake subtype of ‘Public Drop Off’. Normally, we would then split these by RTH method between RTO in the field and in the shelter, but here we will just look at the RTH rate as a whole for animals that were not dropped off by the public.

Like the overall rate, there has been a big improvement in 2020 onwards, but numbers are lower than the overall ones, which suggests the RTH rates for public drop offs would be higher.

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 1186 24 0.02
Cat 2020 839 17 0.02
Cat 2021 527 19 0.04
Dog 2019 945 226 0.24
Dog 2020 650 176 0.27
Dog 2021 472 107 0.23
Other 2019 406 7 0.02

Shelter RTH Rate

This shows the numbers only for public drop offs. We can see that the rates for these have been consistently better than the intakes from other strays across all three years for which we have data for.

Species Year Strays RTH_Count RTH_Rate
Cat 2019 1017 21 0.02
Cat 2020 510 9 0.02
Cat 2021 267 16 0.06
Dog 2019 487 106 0.22
Dog 2020 302 72 0.24
Dog 2021 212 54 0.25
Other 2020 58 1 0.02

RTH Over Time

These three time series show the RTH rate per month, to show whether there were times with particularly high or low rates as well as the overall trajectory.

The improvement from 2019 onwards is noticeable (right at the turn of the year), so we would be curious to hear about your program or policy changes that might be related to that change. The dip around end of 2020 early 2021 is perhaps also worth talking about.

Overall RTH

Field RTH (Dogs)

This is the same figure, but only counting field strays (again, anything marked as something other than public drop off). Looks pretty similar.

Shelter RTH

This figure only counts strays who did not come from the field. Despite the zig-zags there is a steady increase, and the rates are much higher than those from the ‘field’ (the other figure). It’s also unusually zig-zagy in a way that complements the Field rates – so while August and November 2020 were lows above, they are peak RTH rates in this one.

Stray Intakes

This section shows the number of stray intakes over time, as well as the breakdown of strays by field/shelter intake.

Stray Intakes by Month

Stray Intake Subtypes

Length of Stay Differences - RTH v. Other Outcomes

The average difference in length of stay (in days) between strays with RTH outcomes and all other strays is shown in the table below – roughly 8 days for dogs and 18 for cats. That means that every successful RTH saves 8 days of care on average (for dogs) at BARCS.

Species Outcome Count Average_Length_Of_Stay
Cat Other Outcomes 3249 20.08
Cat RTO 106 4.96
Dog Other Outcomes 1864 10.27
Dog RTO 741 2.17

Supporting Data

Stray Intake and RTH By Found ZIP - Dogs

The following maps show stray intake and RTH rate by ZIP codes to highlight geographical patterns. The first and second tab are similar to previous metrics; the third tab, RTH Gap, shows the number of strays who were not returned home per ZIP code.

Stray Intake

RTH Rate

RTH Gap

This combines the other two tabs to highlight where most additional RTH potential exists. As the RTH rate is uniformly high across the city, the areas with more stray intakes stand out.

Stray Intake and RTH By Found ZIP - Cats

The following maps show stray intake and RTH rate by ZIP codes to highlight geographical patterns. The first and second tab are similar to previous metrics; the third tab, RTH Gap, shows the number of strays who were not returned home per ZIP code.

Stray Intake

RTH Rate

RTH Gap

This combines the other two tabs to highlight where most additional RTH potential exists. As the RTH rate is uniformly high across the city, the areas with more stray intakes stand out.

Average LOS by Found Location (Dogs)

Is there a difference in the time it took owners to redeem their dogs based on where they were found? This might be better answered using the outcome (owner’s) ZIP code rather than the found one, but that is what we have on file for the time being. This map only shows dogs that were strays and had an RTH outcome.

Two areas stand out as having longer RTH time on average – 21215 and 21212.

Data Notes

  1. 450 of the 9337 stray animals did not have a ZIP code listed (taken from the Jurisdiction field). 130 had no value, while the rest had written values (‘outside Baltimore’).

  2. 0 out of 9337 strays did not have a found location – which is amazing!

  3. Only 204 animals had the found location of the shelter (including both addresses - Giles and Stockholm).

  4. Intake subtype had two values that seem to be the same: ‘Stray - under 3 months’ and ‘Under 3 months’, used for 212 and 208 animals, respectively. 7 animals had a subtype of ‘surrendered’, which might be worth removing for simplicity.

  5. We got data up to August 2021, so only a month missing from what we had asked so far (September), so you’re doing well!

Extra Metrics

Other things we could show if we had the data for it:

  1. Exact distances traveled by lost dogs from home, if home address is collected for successful RTH.
  2. Prevalence of microchips across town (for example, are there areas from which more animals come in without chips?) and the RTH rates for animals found with/without chips, if there is a field indicating microchip scan results upon intake.
  3. Reclaim fees (could be a yes/no to track fee waiving).
  4. Number of public found reports and successful RTH by the public (if this data is accessible to the shelter).

Thanks for reading through, and we’re looking forward to talking through it and thinking about more ways to make this data useful for you.